overseas investments easier for Mandarin speakers

Online Mandarin speakers making easier for overseas investments

Asian property investors could soon be making foreign money transfers to the UK and the United States as they take advantage of a new online resource geared towards snapping up overseas assets even easier.

While many Chinese-based investors are already putting their money into British property, some are still wary of doing so, largely due to the difficulties they might face as a result of language differences.

Now, however, a new Mandarin-language website has been launched, enabling investors to research and view potential property purchases.

Named Luckywu.com, the online portal is particularly focused on boosting links between UK developers and property vendors and Chinese investors, as well as easing any difficulties that may arise as a result of cultural and social differences between the two parties.

Launching the site, managing director Sherry Madera explained that, while Britons may still be wary of making big purchases, Chinese investors are ready to spend, suggesting the current rate of foreign money transfers between the two countries could carry on growing in the months and years ahead.

"China has the fourth largest number of high net worth individuals in the world. And, following recent changes in taxation in China and with the exchange rate on the Chinese yuan up 50 per cent against Sterling since the end of 2007, they have a real appetite to spend it in the UK and the West," she added.

News of the new online resource comes just days after the Circle of Wine Writers predicted that the number of Asian investors putting their money in fine wines will soar over the next few years.

More specifically, the professional body noted that China is steadily emerging as one of the world's leading international markets for European wines, with interest in wine even greater than in gold and crude oil and with demand even beginning to outstrip supply.